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Talk:Vestiges of Divergence/@comment-85.252.68.4-20160518070901/@comment-27025402-20160518141030
Hi, anonymous! Reckless Attack gives advantage on melee weapon attack rolls using Strength (Player's Handbook, p. 48), not an additional attack. Grog's attack action is a standard attack, plus a second attack due to Extra Attack (p. 49). For his bonus action, Grog can use Frenzy (if he's raging) to make a single melee weapon attack (p. 49), or he can use Great Weapon Master if he scores a critical hit or reduces a creature to 0 HP (p. 167). That's a total of three possible attacks. Starting at level 14, he will also be able to use Retaliation to attack during his reaction (p. 50), but structures don't count as creatures for that ability. As for the siege ability of the Titanstone Knuckles, I assume that it requires a melee attack with the Titanstone Knuckles themselves, not just any attack with any weapon. Travis redacted the stat card, so I don't have confirmation on that, though. Regardless, combat siege abilities have been used only in rare circumstances by Vox Machina, such as when trying to drop the structure onto K'Varn in Chapter 1. Grog's limited melee range wouldn't have helped him achieve that goal, though. Outside of combat, this siege ability may help Vox Machina with their greatest enemy: doors. Thus, I don't see anything imbalancing about the siege ability, especially since it wouldn't apply to, for example, punching a dragon (which is a creature, not a structure or object). If Grog does try to use his siege ability during combat, there's also a high likelihood that, in a large party like Vox Machina, at least one of them would suffer damage from a collapse or cave-in, from stalactites falling from the ceiling, from the walls crumbling down, from the floor anchors breaking, from a subterranean creature alerted by the noise or vibration, from all the traps in the room being triggered by the vibration, or from some other unintended consequence. Mercer is exactly the type of DM that thinks about these consequences. Regarding the Deathwalker's Ward, advantage on death saving throws wouldn't help an unconscious Vax survive several armed skeletons from stabbing him to death with swords, with each stab being an automatic critical hit (and therefore two death save failures with each hit). Nor would the Deathwalker's Ward resistance prevent Vax from dying due to a beholder's petrification, disintegration, or death ray. We also don't know what kind of customized legendary actions the dragons of the Chroma Conclave will use, which may be much deadlier than those in the Monster Manual. For all these reasons and more, I see the Deathwalker's Ward as successfully walking the fine line to protect the danger-prone rogue without, on the one hand, making him invulnerable or, on the other hand, wasting an attunement slot. I hope that allays some of your concerns. In , despite already possessing two Vestiges (the Deathwalker's Ward and the Mythcarver), the entire party of Vox Machina almost got wiped out by... a mere band of barbarians with a couple druids? And now the group's going to fight several ancient dragons? I have confidence in Matthew Mercer's ability to provide challenging and/or meaningful encounters for the group, regardless of the group's inventory.